


Speak To Me Of...

by levitatethis



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Found Family, Gen, Immortal Husbands Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, M/M, Muslim Character, Platonic Love, Romantic Soulmates, Self-Reflection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-31
Updated: 2020-07-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:26:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25628938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/levitatethis/pseuds/levitatethis
Summary: After Booker's exile Yusuf does some major self reflection.  He thinks about his family -- the one he had to leave behind and the one he found, in all their different facets.In hindsight he sees what was always there.Quick Notes:Yusuf/Joe is NOT angry.  He's disappointed.He never had a crisis of faith. He's Muslim (practices in his own way).  It's all good.EID MUBARAK!
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 67
Kudos: 345





	Speak To Me Of...

**~Pain~**

_“Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding._

_Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain.” ~ Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet_

By the time the group and Booker part ways outside the pub, Yusuf’s anger has dissipated.

It’s been spat out and disregarded on the lab floor. All that remains in its wake is frustration, confusion, and disappointment. In a way that’s far worse. 

Anger burns bright and quick, but disappointment lingers hurtful and gnawing; it stacks theoretical questions one on top of the other until Yusuf can’t remember where Booker’s betrayal begins and his own heartbreak ends. 

From the stairs, Yusuf ventures one final look. Booker meets his eyes and offers up a small nod as if to say, _I know I fucked up. I understand my punishment and will abide by it. See you in a hundred years._

There are no words for Yusuf to offer in return. They’d be nothing more than a waste of breath for a man it currently hurts to look at. There’s no solace to be found or bestowed.

Everyone makes a choice. 

You flip a coin and the outcome is fifty-fifty. The sting burns. The heart sings a lament.

But it’s still the same goddamn coin.

***

**~Sorrow~**

_“The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain._

_Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven;_

_And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?”_

_~ Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet_

The thing of it is, Yusuf understands grief.

Long before forever, when time was a finite resource, he had plans for himself; to continue his studies and explore the depths of the world both hidden and laid bare all around.

His father had a jovial air while conversing with friends, near and far, outside his shop and on the road; an ease to his countenance and a wink to his son when a long term trader asked when Yusuf would be taking over the business.

“My son’s path lies not here. He is going to uncover the secrets under heaven.”

When the trader insisted Yusuf already had so much business experience accompanying his father on various routes that would surely go to waste, his father remain undeterred. “To know the world, truly, you must see it first. Ignorance must never go unchecked no matter where one’s path eventually leads.”

So much pride.

Yusuf reveled in the witty eloquence of his mother, simultaneously regaling him with poetic musings while quick stepping with haggling customers, never backing down from a challenge. On the occasions when he didn’t travel abroad with his father it was his mother who kept the business running, giving as good as she got. 

She made the time at the end of each day to sit with Yusuf away from noise of the world to discuss anything under the sun. She listened to his ideas, posited new ones, challenged him to consider and reconsider, to tweak and redesign into something new.

_Seek knowledge from the cradle to the grave._

Her eyes lit up as they spun ideas into bold creations.

He remembers them still so clearly.

They never got a proper goodbye, not after death proved itself an unworthy bedfellow of life. From afar he had released his ties to them and so many others into the wind. For their sake. In the endless time that followed the loss robbed his sleep of peace even as he continued to seek and understand on terms that didn’t make sense but had to be for a higher reason. There were no nightmares but a restlessness that refused to allow his mind or soul to settle.

For a long time he was undone.

Until he wasn’t.

***

**~Children~**

_“You may give them your love but not your thoughts._

_For they have their own thoughts._

_You may house their bodies but not their souls,_

_For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams._

_You may strive to be like them but seek not to make them like you._

_For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.” ~ Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet_

Nile joining their wayward family has been a quiet revelation.

She doesn’t fill the gaping hole that Booker’s exile has left (nor does she try to) yet she mutes the edges of his absence.

Maybe it’s that she’s so young, so new to their world, but her insatiable curiousity and her endless questions keep him on his toes -- 

“But seriously how long before you and Nicky went from enemies to lovers?”

“Have you ever helped someone that you ended up wishing you had let die?”

“Have you ever told someone your secret knowing they would never tell anyone for as long as they lived?”

“That painting is of Nicky? I want all the details!”

“Who are the most famous people you’ve met? Does history get them right or totally wrong?”

“Do you think our immortality is random or were we somehow chosen? Do you think it’s some sort of evolutionary leap every few hundred years or divine intervention?”

“I’m just saying, Joe, you could have a side hustle teaching guys how to properly talk to someone they’re interested in.”

“Would you train me on your weapons? I think this team could benefit from all of us being able to step in when a skill set is missing.”

“Could you draw the same thing but reference a different style? Monet Nicky. Rembrandt Nicky. Sabri Nicky!”

Her willingness to throw herself in with their lot (all while she still struggles to reconcile the heady fork in the road suddenly thrust upon her) breathes new life into their family.

Yusuf enjoys their conversations and when he catches Nicolo’s eyes across the table he knows they’re both wondering if this is what it would be like to have a daughter following in their footsteps; she slots into their lives with such ease. 

He shares with her both his formal and informal education; what he’s learned from experiencing the world firsthand and what he’s collected from the various universities and colleges he (and Nicolo) attended for random semesters depending on how long they settled in a particular place. 

“It’s important you make your life your own,” Yusuf shares with Nile, remembering his mother’s wisdom. “Literature, poetry, art, debate; the combined beauty of science and religion, have always been part of me. Why should that stop just because life veered in an unexpected direction. Whatever it is that makes your mind race – nurture it. That’s when you honour yourself and the family you had to leave behind.”

He eyes the cross around her neck, her faith so vitally important especially now with so much confusion at every turn. He understands that well. He may not wear his beliefs quite so prominently but he’s familiar with the comfort they bring. 

Nicolo still prays before every mission and follows it up with a look to Yusuf for consecration (which Yusuf bestows with a bright smile each time), the matter settled before God. He still visits churches and cathedrals in various locations around the globe, sits inside and takes time for himself. So much of how Nicolo sees and reacts to the world is a reflection of the course his life once held steady on and then his continued cycle of death and rebirth – paralleled by the rise and fall and reformation of civilizations around him –that forced an internal questioning until he found something honest he could live with.

Sometimes the past is a foe. It can also be a touchstone if you pick and choose the remnants that haven’t gone off and aged badly.

Over the centuries elements of Yusuf’s practice have changed but at his core what is true remains. He doesn’t perform salat five times a day yet never misses Eid prayers (either Eid al-Fitr or Eid al-Adha or even the occasional Jumu’ah). And, depending on where they are when Eid arrives, if the local Imam is someone in line with his own way of seeing the world, he makes the effort to listen to the khutbah and reflect upon it. 

He doesn’t adhere to eating only halal (yet also doesn’t go out of his way to eat pork), enjoys a nice wine (or slightly harder drink) now and then, and still always fasts for Ramadan. The profundity of the experience has never lost its awe; making a choice with a physical offering and spiritual reset reminds him to look within himself and the world around him – all those intentions -- and to take stock of it all. One year, with no prompting (but after many curious questions gently inquired with the desire to truly understand), Nicolo joined him. It was the first of many fasts they still share.

Andy jokes that Ramadan is just an extended month of teasing foreplay for them, that even though “…technically Joe and Nicky could have sex each night after sunset but Joe here likes to go real hard for the month. It’s a mind game and Nicky is the willing pawn. Word of warning kid, you’re going to want to be as far away from the house as possible when the month is over.”

Yusuf shrugs his shoulders. “Hey I don’t make the rules, I just follow them.”

“When have you ever followed rules?” Andy scoffs at the same time Nile jokes, “You follow rules?”

Yusuf raises his arms defensively but he’s clearly amused by the direction of the conversation. 

“Distance makes the heart grow fonder,” Nicolo adds sweetly – always sweetly – with a smile.

“That it does,” Yusuf agrees. “But I couldn’t be more fond of you than I already am.”

“Uh oh, they’re making eyes,” Andy observes and turns to Nile. “Let’s go for a walk. There’s an amazing café not too far from here.”

Poetry. Philosophy. Family. They have all been pillars of his faith that he’s spoken of freely when they’ve stayed in one spot long enough for it to feel familiar, almost like home. To then have his own ideas echoed back off a stage –

“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,

Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

(“You should get a royalty cheque every time this play is performed,” Booker liked to grumble. “He just took your words and lay claim to them as his own genius. Thief.”)

Within the last hundred years Kahlil Gibran’s works, having found a real audience in the 1960s counter culture, have become as close to holy as possible. He keeps a pocket size version of The Prophet on him at almost all times, thumbing through it when he’s seeking to calm his soul. 

Whenever Andy sees him reach for the book she raises an eyebrow. Of them all, she is the outlier. She’s from a time long before. She _was_ a God. For her the way organized religion is practiced, the rules set out, are meant to turn the masses into sheep. She’s seen too much bad done in the name of good and the pattern repeating even though the faces may change.

“She’s too old for this shit,” Yusuf smirks while folding his arms tightly across his chest and sitting back in his chair.

Andy laughs. “I definitely am,” she confirms and downs a large glass of wine. “I’ve seen the righteousness of men, the self-flagellation and unwavering insistence that there is only one right way –”

Yusuf catches her eye as she’s gearing up for the guaranteed rant to follow. He closes his eyes, scrunches his face and lightly nods in Nile’s direction. _Cut her some slack._

Andy stops short and ensures her follow up is kind. “But if it brings you comfort, don’t let me stop you.”

It’s important to Yusuf that Nile knows there’s a space for different ways of viewing their place in the world. It had taken him and Nicolo awhile to reconcile that their faiths weren’t the problem but the men who sought to speak to its absolutism while driven by selfish and cruel intentions.

He can do this for Nile. He wants to. Needs to. The alternative –

Booker.

There’s nothing worse than the sight of a man with an amputated soul.

***

**~Love~**

_“And think not that you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course._

_Love has no other desire but to fulfil itself._

_But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:_

_To melt and be like a running brook that sing its melody to the night._

_To know the pain of too much tenderness._

_To be wounded by your own understanding of love;_

_And to bleed willingly and joyfully.” ~ Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet_

In the beginning, when the reality of forever was still sinking in, there was always Nicolo.

In the hazy din of battle he was figment on the horizon, a shadow across his back, the light upon his chest.

Yusuf was never truly alone.

It was brutal at the start. Violence (unending), excruciating pain, blood, and death. How often can two men die at each other’s hands before they realize there’s something else a foot?

Communication in the traditional sense was not in the cards early on so everything was an effort when they confusedly decided to make a go of figuring out the entire mess together. 

But that was the thing. They were _together_.

Side-by-side as weary adversaries they eventually became travel acquaintances then friends and then, eventually, lovers; now they are something inevitable, with no definition that can properly convey what they are to each other. 

All and more.

Yusuf knew it long after their first tentative steps together when a bad dream ripped him from his sleep only to find Nicolo’s worried expression directed his way, flickering in the flames of their campfire. Without a word Nicolo had crawled toward him and raised his hand to Yusuf’s face, gently thumbing away the tears he hadn’t meant to spill.

Without words Yusuf had leaned into the touch and rested their foreheads together. 

It would still be a long way before they shared a bed and still a long way after that before they became entangled as much physically as they already were emotionally. 

Yusuf is not incomplete without Nicolo. He knows he could function but the quality of that life would be in question. To him they are two souls sharing the same space, their hearts attached by an invisible rope, connecting them across space and time. They were written in the stars of an expanding, unknowable universe.

When he first told Nicolo this he took pleasure in the blush wildfire that rose upon his cheeks and the pleased hum that danced from his throat.

What Yusuf can say with an arsenal of words and languages, with the careful drag of a pencil across a page, Nicolo returns with odd pragmatism and definitive action. People often mistake Nicolo’s kindness for weakness (much to Yusuf’s amusement – if they only knew). He is compassionate, yes, and he would slay dragons for those he loved without hesitation.

Yusuf can lay you bare and undo you with the same tongue.

Nicolo speaks of destiny and then cuts through the matter with a sword or bullet.

Yusuf unloads his anger in sharp, pointed bursts.

Nicolo percolates, feeds it tiny morsels beneath the surface until it’s suitably placated or ready to unleash hell.

Somewhere in between they find the balance. Together the space around them ebbs and flows to accommodate a dance they’ve honed since time held more consequences. No one has known Yusuf like this man and he has known no one like him.

Their love is immense. 

And it can create blindspots.

Although they’ve never once taken each other for granted they have forgotten (at times) that their love isn’t someone else’s salvation. 

When Andy requires space they give it to her. She insists. She knows what she needs and takes it.

Booker doesn’t. He lets too much go unsaid, collects grief like trading cards, hording them like a personal war chest he’ll either cash in or suffocate under.

Yusuf realizes (with Nicolo’s help) the things they didn’t ask Andy or Booker – out of respect for personal space – that maybe they should have. Afterall, Yusuf and Nicolo had each other to turn to, to lash out at and be granted forgiveness and a shoulder to lean on. They assumed they could be enough for Andy and Booker, always be the home either could return to, what they’ve always been to each other.

They may be immortal but their mistakes are still human.

***

**~ Friendship ~**

_“And let the best be for your friend._

_If he must know the ebb of your tide, let him know its flood also._

_For what is your friend that you should seek him with hours to kill?_

_Seek him always with hours to live._

_For it is his to fill your need, but not your emptiness._

_And in the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures.” ~ Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet_

Andy is the boss. Nile the rookie. Nicolo is his co-conspirator lover in arms.

Booker…Booker is – _was_ \-- is his friend.

Together they could spend afternoons watching football and egging each other on (while Nicolo read, having never developed a love for the sport which Booker labelled “blasphemous” and Yusuf shouted through laughter, “You betray your European brethren, Nicky!”).

Sometimes Yusuf simply enjoyed sitting with Booker, reading or sketching in his notebook while his friend seemed to live or die based on his team’s performance. The occasional comment about his family, a moment from his past, shared between them. Those moments were cherished.

Yusuf and Nicolo are a shared entity. He sees it in the way people regard them while walking down the street even when there’s nothing overt about their actions. They can be thousands of feet apart and there’s still no coming in between them. With Booker they were just two guys shooting the shit and taking up porous space while making sarcastic quips. 

One of Yusuf’s greatest discoveries was that despite Booker’s aloofness he could be very sentimental, thoughtful even. When Yusuf wanted to find a book to gift Nicolo, it was Booker who dragged him to his favourite shop and helped him search while the morning yielded to afternoon sharing little bits of himself (usually carefully chosen but sometimes accidentally more intimate in nature). 

And it was Booker who initiated the betting games on any (and almost all) things, including Andy’s baklava fixation. It was silly and fun and always managed to improve the spirits of the team, no place for awkward tension.

That’s what Booker did. He found ways to make them laugh.

He made Yusuf laugh.

It wasn’t unusual to find the two of them playing one-on-one footy in the living room until Andy told them to “Take it outside boys!” when the racket became too much.

Then it was them outside going back and forth over penalty kicks –

“You’re coming off the line too early – that’s a card!”

“Book, you couldn’t get your hands or foot on this ball if there was a homing device attached to it and it was rolled in superglue.”

They were the two in the yard making bets on who could pass some elaborate obstacle course with the ball based off one well aimed kick --

“So, off the side of house, between the planters, off the tree, over the bush…”

“How is it going to suddenly elevate over the bush?”

“You don’t think you can do it, Joe?”

“Do you seriously think you can?”

While Booker and Nicolo had a more courteous and respectful (usually), professional relationship, Yusuf actually got along with the surly, sometimes morose, emotionally gutted, genuinely funny man.

Booker.

Even when his smile didn’t reach his eyes.

Even when his jokes came with a tired inflection.

Even when that faraway gaze lingered too long on nothing.

Even when the drinking went well beyond sociable to self medicating.

All those signs – Yusuf isn’t so callous to have missed them but willing his friend well, though nice in thought, was not the right answer.

It was easy to not dwell on what’s undoubtedly apparent and broken with hindsight. A well paying job can mask the symptoms and Booker was a damn good brother in arms.

Brother.

***

**~ Knowledge ~**

_“Your heart knows in silence the secrets of the days and nights._

_But your ears thirst for the sound of your heart’s knowledge._

_You would know in words that which you have always known in thought.” ~ Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet_

Nicolo escapes them to a secluded bench in a nearby park. It’s not that they can’t have this conversation at the safehouse but the emptiness by way of a missing familiar body has felt increasingly overwhelming.

Yusuf sits hunched forward, arms on his thighs and cradling his head in his hands trying to ease an invisible tension pressing down. He senses Nicolo shift closer on his right before he actually does.

“There’s no excuse for what he did.”

“There isn’t,” Nicolo agrees.

The pause that follows, too heavy to be left untended, has Yusuf sighing while glancing his way. “But…”

“He’s still family.”

“Fine way to show it,” Yusuf mutters and sits back, folding his hands in his lap while waiting for Nicolo to continue.

“He made a terrible decision, but his reasons weren’t cruel. They were misguided and things could have gone much worse, but…we also knew he was sad.”

“He had us. All of us. He put all of us at risk,” Yusuf reiterates the line he’s been saying over and over in his head for months. Yet it loses a little more power each time. He knows deep down that Booker wouldn’t begrudge Yusuf and Nicolo their happiness. But their relationship also emphasizes everything he lost so long ago.

“Yes, he had us. But deep down he feels he has nothing. And now that’s what’s left. Maybe if his wife or one of his sons had been immortal.”

Yusuf closes his eyes and leans his head back. He basks in the midday sun on his skin and thinks about the times Booker shared pieces of his heart unknowingly and Yusuf felt for him yet couldn’t quite relate. “We were the lucky ones.”

Nicolo slips his hand over Yusuf’s and waits until they’re looking at each other. “What we had wasn’t luck. It was a gift from God. Who would we have been without the other?”

Yusuf’s heart swells as he looks at the man Allah saw fit to put by his side through the joys and devastations, the man with whom he shared perilous journeys and calm moments of solitude (where the silence could stretch wide without the desperate need to fill it up or they could talk about everything under the sun); the man who makes his mornings worth waking up and his nights a peaceful embrace; who whispers (sometimes damn dirty) jokes in bed leaving the two of them out of breath in laughter and then is undeterred military focus on a mission; the man who is a collection of private smiles and coiled rage when hurt is done to those he loves; whose soft eyes belie the executionary trigger finger. He is a man whose explicit concern for the unfortunate is the outcome of hundreds of lifetimes reinforcing social awareness until it became ingrained as second nature; the very man who has challenged Yusuf to be the best version of himself, to be okay when faltering and steady in finding his feet; carrying forward, always together.

When he looks at Nicolo he sees all this and more reflected back. Their hearts beat the same after all. Nicolo may not be a man of many words but what he does say and what he shows are a language Yusuf hasn’t doubted since they first took up arms against one another. 

He raises Nicolo’s hand to his lips. “Without you I would be untethered, adrift in a desperate search for home. No North Star to guide me. Loving you – and being loved by you – has forever changed the course of my life.”

Nicolo gifts him one of those discrete smiles that barely touches his lips. His eyes are bright. “He’s alone. Unanchored. And he was wrong and he knows it.”

“Not without redemption,” Yusuf finishes.

They let the near silence sit around them, taking in the faint sounds of birds and the distance buzz of traffic.

Eventually Nicolo quirks an eye his way. “You were already changing your mind about him.”

Yusuf feigns shock at the accusation, grins and shrugs. “He’s a jackass. But I’ve been thinking about him, about all of us. He’s not absolved but we – I -- could have tried better to reach out. He’s been depressed for a long time and we’re family right? It means we make a promise to each other. There are so few of us, so few who can understand _this_. I’m all for taking space for yourself but some things need to be shared. Nile is going to need all of us.”

He feels the fondness in Nicolo’s stare feels suddenly bashful.

“I think you miss your football friend.”

Yusuf let’s loose an abrupt laugh. “What can I say. You may wield a sword like a knight but your football skills leave something to be desired.” He gets a kick out of hearing Nicolo mutter some choice words in Italian.

He reorients their hands so their fingers are interlocked and gives a gentle squeeze. Just sitting together is perfection and something he desperately needed. Something has clicked into place and it feels like he can breathe again. Although Nicolo’s calmness is a balm it also has Yusuf ruminating on something that’s been painfully obvious for some time. 

Tilting his head he shares, half serious, half musing, “I know you wanted to kill him in that lab.”

Nicolo mirrors the angle and takes a thoughtful pause before replying. “I wanted to do much more. While you were yelling insults I was making a list of all the ways I would dispose of him piece-by-piece. You were very loud. It was interrupting my process.”

“Oooh, clever murderer.”

As they share another laugh Yusuf unclasps their hands and maneuvers his arm around Nicolo’s shoulder, pulling him into his body and taking a deep breath as Nicolo rests his head in the crook of Yusuf’s neck, his lips the barest touch against his skin.

***

**~ Love (Part II) ~**

_“When love beckons to you follow him,_

_Though his ways are hard and steep._

_And when his wings enfold you yield to him,_

_Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you._

_And when he speaks to you believe in him,_

_Though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden._

_For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you.” ~ Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet_

It’s not even a year. Well short of the hundred demanded. But circumstances being what they are, and Booker apparently sounding panicked on the phone to Andy, it is what it is.

Yusuf is in the kitchen pretending not to listen as the rest of the gang greets Booker’s arrival. If he’s being truthful he’s hiding, nervous about taking the necessary steps –

“Hey Joe.”

Booker looks uncertain, clearly doubtful over whether he’s already overstepped by speaking first.

Yusuf is frozen to the spot with a dishtowel in his hands and making some exaggerated show of wiping them off before tossing it to the table. Booker looks…good. Yusuf was expecting someone worse for wear and a small part of him is pissed that this man isn’t wearing his punishment like a scarlet letter. And then he realizes something. Booker looks good because he’s made the effort to do so for this visit. Which means he put thought and care into how he presented himself and how that would be perceived. He pulled himself together; is taking this seriously. This is him trying to make amends in a hopeful bid for something salvageable.

(“He’ll take his cue from you,” Nicolo had commented earlier.)

Yusuf looks at Booker. Really looks at him. He sees the backstabber who nearly cost this family everything and the man who barely seemed to want to try half the time, complaining over the smallest requests of him, preferring to bury himself at the bottom of a flask. He also sees the melancholy eyes, now cast downward, and the droop in his stance that conveys the regretful price he can never totally repay; the cost of which is tattooed on his soul. He sees the broken man who still made ridiculous bets with his friends and yelled at bad referee calls, who shit talked Yusuf while trying to dislodge a football from his feet; who fought to save Andy when death was a real possibility for the first time; the grieving man who helped him find a birthday present for his love even when his own was long and buried.

Yusuf walks up to him and places a hand on his shoulder. Booker’s eyes widen in surprise.

“I’m sor—”

Yusuf pulls him into a hug before Booker can finish his apology, the end of it muffled into his shoulder as he wraps his arms tight. He feels Booker freeze and then collapse in his hold before returning the hug, clinging around Yusuf’s waist.

“We have a lot to talk about,” Yusuf whispers. “And we have all the time in the world now that you’re home.”

**Author's Note:**

> As a Muslim and BIPOC, the character of Yusuf/Joe, and the nuance with which Marwan Kenzari plays him, has meant a lot to me. I was inspired to try and explore who the (movie) version of the character is/might be and the significance of various relationships.
> 
> Muslims are not a monolothic group. Like everyone else we are incredibly varied. I chose to base Yusuf's way of practicing loosely on my own (and my family -- even my own family runs the gamut from strict observance to barely at all). Anything that seems in question is on me.
> 
> If you can't tell, Kahlil Gibran's 'The Prophet' made a real impact on me. I received it as a birthday gift in high school and it has stayed with me ever since. If I even mention it to my dad he'll quote sections of it off the top his head.
> 
> My apologies for the lack of accents. Technical difficulties.


End file.
